California has a larger population than all four states that have voted so far.

[kurtcagle]

40. Reasoning on Biden

California may very well go Sanders, though I have a feeling that the Undecideds likely have held off voting enough that it's not necessarily a slam dunk that early voting will sway the day. However, longer term, I still contend that Bernie does not benefit from Covid-19 as much as Biden will. First, for all that Sanders has the more progressive agenda, Biden simply has the experience of dealing with this kind of situation before, with the Ebola response. Biden has also been the voice of calm and reason throughout the election, and people respond to that far more than they necessarily respond to a given platform.

Something like Covid-19 is, to put it bluntly, scary. I am a 56 year old man who's had two heart attacks, and the thought that there's a virus out there with the primary symptom of reducing air-flow to the lungs and heart is a terrifying prospect to someone who lives daily with shortness of breath. I will want someone who I know is competent in charge, not necessarily someone who makes grandiose aspirations but has little experience in actually implementing those, because I am quite literally putting my life into that person's hands.

I voted for Sanders in the 2016 primaries. By the time the convention came around, I'd had a chance to see how his staff functioned, who he surrounded himself with, and how they reacted in a crisis. I was not impressed. I'm seeing the same thing this time around; he's not able to control his message, his agents have a cocky arrogance to them that reminds me very uncomfortably of Trump's appointees, and there's no humility to the man.

In 2008, we had a similar crisis going on. Bush was more or less AWOL as the stock market melted down, and Obama and John McCain were battling at after Obama secured the nomination. I was considering McCain, as I'm sure a lot of people were, but what made the difference for me was McCain's selection of Sarah Palin, which showed to me that McCain was not willing to buck his party if he needed to, and Obama essentially abandoning the campaign trail to meet with key people in government and Wall Street to turn things around. He showed real leadership, even at the cost of missing out on what could have been critical rallies.

I can see Biden doing that. He WAS doing that, right alongside Obama. McCain just looked lost, and I think that's what ultimately lost the election for him.

People my age remember that. They remember Obama rolling up his shirtsleeves and wading in, damn the consequences, remember Biden being there to act as Devil's advocate and executive officer. It's why I think that the Coronavirus will prove to be Biden's defining moment. It's possible Bernie will rise to the fore instead, but my read on him is that he's an ideologue, someone so fixated upon his vision that he fails to see the real problems around him, and that at the end of the day he will have trouble responding to the crises that test ANY president.